Dear Terry, Yes, it has taken me this long to post your Beautiful art made with knitting website tip. My favourite is the bunny impaled with a carrot. It rocks very hard.

Ahem. This will probably be the only time Gary (as captured by Neil) will be featured in so many pixels, but maximising his pain is my God-given duty.

Caroline Miceli! I know you! I remember you when you were working in Xiamen.

I don’t know about the numbers of young Americans moving overseas temporarily on a ‘gap year’ type of career move, and it’s interesting that it’s one of the most popular e-mailed articles on the New York Times website today. Lots of people come to Xiamen (and probably other parts of China) to, IMHO:

1. take a holiday and earn a bit of money (illegally) while they’re at it
2. do whatever it is their company sent them here to do
3. earn a fortune being an entrepreneur in ‘trading’

As you can imagine, those doing option 3 tend to be disappointed. One of the things that gets me about people who come here seeking their fortune is that they don’t seem to realise that EVERYONE IS DOING IT. And those who have done very well for themselves have put in YEARS AND YEARS of hard work and experience building.

I am certainly not the only gay in the village who understands this, but why is it so many foreigners here have this expectation of big money in a short time? Chinese people aren’t going to fall over themselves to buy your product or make your product irresistable to sales channels you might or might not have. If you’ve spotted a good product, there’s a good chance a VERY LARGE CORPORATION in the developed world with LOTS OF MONEY AND MIGHT has already had their sourcing agents go in there with promises of HUGE VOLUMES to get low prices, so you’re not going to get the ‘best price’, no matter what the factory says.

I don’t know when this became a rant but I’m going to stop it. I came to China with no plan, having been told that if I wanted to teach English as a stop gap I was going to find it difficult to find work since I’m ethnic Chinese. One thing I certainly did not expect was to end up doing what I’m doing now. I also did not expect to still be in China.

What I think is the most striking thing — nothing happens as you expect or even remotely anticipate. Come to China for a holiday, find yourself still there three years later teaching English. Or something. Meet a girl, she gets pregnant, suddenly you’ve got a family. Life just surprises you. It changes you (me) in such subtle ways that when you (I) emerge at the end of the experience, you (I) am quite, quite different.

That scarf I was so pleased with? That brightly-coloured, fluffy, soft wool and mohair job? It went in the washing machine for a warm wash, but the thermostat is clearly broken like my spirit and will to achieve, and it SHRUNK and partially FELTED. Which means it’s not fluffy, it’s not so bright, and has great big holes where there used to be acceptable medium holes.

Plus I have deadlines and it’s rainy and kind of cold and we’ve been back in Xiamen for less than three weeks and I already wish I was on vacation. I’ve only had one freelancer submit a story this issue and it turns out she lives in the building across from mine (how weird) and so I’ve had to write like crazy, despite dealing with a whole lot of (grammatically correct and coherent) writer’s block.

And my mind is tired. I’m so tired. Curling up in bed and subsisting off pot noodles and cup a soup looks bloody irresistable right about now. And I can crochet more scarf-y things because I bought more fancy yarn, which is the only bright spot in my creative life. And that’s only because one of the rolls is bright red. The other one Neil describes as “muted”.

I’m not cute and happy and I have nothing funny to write about except maybe that the Sofitel in Xiamen has rooms with dirty old man written all over them because the wall separating the bedroom and bathroom is clear glass so if some bloke hires a working girl he can watch her in the bath. But it could also be so that when you’re in the bath, you can turn the telly around and watch National Geographic. Which had a programme on about the marsupial lion and this giant scary pelican-looking bird the Aussie paleontologist called THUNDER BIRD, which makes me expect it to put on a helmet and fly through space to save the world. Giant demon duck of doom is much better — I see a crochet toy bearing that name.

Rambling helps me relax.

… watched Scotland battle their way to victory against England in the rugby.

EIGHTEEN - TWELVE, BABY! It was beautiful to watch Chris Paterson kick all those penalties (too bad it wasn’t a try scoring match, I like those better).

Last night we watched Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm.

All in all a very relaxing weekend. Except for the excitement of SCOTLAND BEATING ENGLAND.

If drag means dressing up like a rabbit. I wonder if Toad the ferret gets confused.

What happens when I try to make a skull but decide it’s rabbit partway through?

‘E’s the main geezer, awright!

There was a time when I would itch to go out, to party, to meet new people. I think I was sociable because I wanted to be. Making conversation and getting to know people on that initial, superficial basis has always been a tough, awkward thing. It might be obvious to those whom (note to Keith: this would be an instance that someone uses the word ‘whom’) I chat with that I’m struggling.

Time has marched on. Making conversation continues to be hard. I remember myself trying with a young student on gap year, chatting with her about her efforts to study Chinese. I wonder if she thought I was younger than I am because of my evident discomfort with social discourse, an unavoidable necessity at parties.

Making conversation with her, in fact, was an aberration. I have withdrawn into myself by astounding depths (I didn’t realise there was so much of me to turn inside out). Not bothering to chat and discomfiting people away from me is my modus operandi. Some people (well, two people) in my life seem to embrace this anti-social quality, and they have problem sitting or standing with me in silence (or leaving me alone), as I (we) survey the scene.

I suppose it’s true that I look unsociable, I don’t fit in with the flow. I’m tempted to say I never have and I don’t want to and give that rebellious, aggressive reaction. The truth is I have, all my short life I have, and actually being in a place like Xiamen (or maybe I’ve grown as a person?) has encouraged me to drop trying to give the impression of being a more colourful personality than I am. If you have the patience to let me get over my instinctive shyness, if you call me and ask me to hang out and really get to know me, in time you’ll find that I can be a real talker. I’ll even call and ask you to hang out.

• had dinner at Little Chilli
• went to The Londoner (to meet Reuben, and it became really crowded and smoky later on, when we got home out clothes absolutely reeked of cigarette smoke)
• did a load of laundry
• watched The Big Lebowski (finally)
• did nothing all day (the weather was shite)
• went to Georgie’s birthday dinner at Pattaya
• ended up at The Londoner, which was very smoky (because the smokers couldn’t handle the cold and had all the windows closed, so I stayed outside most of the time)
• watched the first half of Aeon Flux (I used to watch the cartoon infrequently on the telly, and Neil likes to see girls in tight outfits, so it was win-win)
• continued reading The Historian
• finished watching Aeon Flux (I had such low expectations at the beginning, and so it turned out better than I thought)
• had dinner at Tutto Bene (had a hankering for stew, and it the only place that I could think of that served something like stew)
• finished reading The Historian (what a good book; I love vampire stories, and this one was a great tale with the ‘back story’ of Dracula extremely well fleshed out)

Crochet is really enjoyable because I get to concentrate on something and not think about stuff I have to get done. Ah, the curse of responsibility! I have a bunch of writing to finish, but I decided to focus on ideas I had and yarn I wanted to use. Just for today.

Last night, I treble crocheted a very simple scarf:

Of course, first I had to learn the treble crochet stitch. I’d bought this yarn a couple of months ago and was fearing that I wouldn’t use it, so I sat down and crocheted like mad (with a 8.00mm hook) while we watched Traffic on DVD. The multiple strands are in such pretty colours but are SUCH A PAIN IN THE ARSE to crochet. It’s kind of holey, but I reckon it’ll do the job. Hopefully the evenings will continue to be very cool and windy for a little while more, so I can wear it out.

This morning, I crocheted a skull, something every newbie crocheter must attempt:

It’s kind of wee, and I made up the pattern as I went along, but I’m happy with how it turned out. I added a keychain and have put it up for sale — hopefully someone else will like it, too.

“If you can read, you can cook!”

I say, I’m a speed reader, and my attention span is a combination of puppy dog (easily distracted) and goldfish (what? Memory? What’s that?).

Scrambling eggs in a [EDIT] non-non-stick saucepan is not recommended. Letting your boyfriend poach eggs in a non-stick frypan is much better.

But I do like my scrambled eggs, and I do them reasonably well — probably because the instructions imparted to me when I was 13 and on vacation in New Zealand are easy enough for a goldfish to understand, if a goldfish was ever inclined to flop out of the tank and over to the kitchen and got some eggs out and beat them with a little milk and maybe some pepper and salt to taste and then poured the mixture into a saucepan and stirred it constantly over a low flame until scrambled enough to their liking.

If a goldfish could do that, we’d have a lot more to worry about than how to make good scrambled eggs. IMHO.

They kind of neglect to mention that what they deem suitable content for the Internet is a helluva lot more restrictive than most of the world: “It is unfair and smacks of double standards when (they) criticize China for deleting illegal and harmful messages while it is legal for US websites for doing so.” — ‘Regulation of Internet in line with world norms’

Two of the Bali Nine have been sentenced to death by an Indonesian court. I’ll be expecting the media frenzy and condemnations and petitions, as happened with Nguyen Truong Van, though I won’t be holding my breath.

Because I don’t need to get sued, either: “I wish I didn’t have to do this. I wish I could say that my country’s judicial system is independent and fair. But I can’t because that would be a lie. It would be a much easier decision for me, and more importantly for my family, to walk away from this bankruptcy hearing and accept the punishment that the court has meted out. But my conscience dictates otherwise and I must take the path that in all likelihood will lead to dire consequences.” — Statement of Chee Soon Juan submitted to the High Court, Singapore at the Bankruptcy Petition Hearing on 10 February 2006 (via the Asian Human Rights Commission, whose website is suspiciously inaccessible in this region of the world)

The sweet (super shweeeeet) dinosaur wallet I got for my birthday from my sister is handmade by Alberta May Poon. It is excellent and dinosaurs are cool.

Young Terry pointed out that the photo of the plaque (known as a ba gua, not to be confused with the barbecued meat product) I posted on Flickr a while back was very similar to a mysterious company that is featured on Lost. Dharma Industries believes in feng shui, I guess.

• watched movies — They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong (a screening at The Arts House, it was funny in a kitsch way, especially the cable car-Chinese garden scenes — check out a recent photo of Marrie Lee / Doris Young), Dynamite Johnson (well, we tried to watch it right after Cleopatra Wong, but it was too much same old same old), Fearless (the first Jet Li movie I’ve seen in the cinema, it’s a kungfu movie much like the ones I remember watching as a child, and I got to chow down on popcorn and sip Ribena), and Fun With Dick and Jane (much better than I had anticipated, and the popcorn and Ribena were just as good the second time around).
• read books — Escape from Paradise (which I now call the ‘gossip book’, as the story is about dishing the dirt on the wealthy and powerful and extolling how wonderful and special and different the protagonist is as a Singaporean woman, and here’s a little tip for the writers: please make sure an editor works on it if there is another printing in future, the appallingly poor English made it extremely difficult for me to enjoy the book), The Time Traveller’s Wife (as recommended by Kristen, a very readable, delightful story), The Little Friend (it reminded me a little of To Kill a Mockingbird, in that it’s based around the life of a young Southern girl, but nothing’s as good as Harper Lee), Blink (again, recommended by Kristen, and I enjoyed it so much that I went out and bought The Tipping Point, which I’ve not yet read), 4 Blondes (prior to going out and buying more books, I sat and read one of my mum’s “brainless” books, and it wasn’t as bad as I expected, but it wasn’t so good, either), and Cobweb (I want Neal Stephenson to have my children)
• ate at Black Angus three times — I ordered the prime rib each and every time, which was good, and Neil thought our Aberdonian server was from somewhere in Scandinavia because we could understand what he was saying
• whacked some burgers at the Spize Cafe (yes, you read that right) based on Garvin’s recommendation, although he had had food poisoning and could only whack a mutton chop (which was pretty massive and spicy on its own) and maybe steal some of his wife’s beehoon, and I also had a very nice lychee drink
• ate loads and loads of prata (garlic prata, butter prata, mushroom and cheese prata, onion prata) at The Prata Cafe and made it to Neil’s old favourite prata stall at Farrer Court for breakfast (I am a fan of the raw fish platter at the stall in the opposite row as well)
• met Kristen at Father Flanagan’s on our first day back (it was her last day in Singapore on business), managed to go to Loof only once (not a place I would hang out at regularly, but it’s lovely to have the option, and the Seabreezes weren’t bad), checked out Zouk because Neil wanted to see Paul Van Dyk (I’ve been over this), and (kind of) watched a snowboarding demo (and nursed a pint of Erdinger for an hour) at Indochine — we must be getting older, as evidenced by a fading desire to party and get drunk
• ate home cooked tapas (including Scottish ‘tapas’ — haggis on toast) with some of Neil’s friends
• met Evon at Art Friend (she gifted me with one of her cool amigurumi bag charms!) and went to Spotlight, both places I visited far too often these past three weeks (I have so much craft stuff I’m in ecstasy), and Evon recommended I check out Golden Dragon as well, then I found Mix and Match in the same building, then I also discovered The Knotty Shop was still open)
• made two amigurumi animals for Mum’s home decor — Fidelius the zombie mouse and Crispin the 80’s duck / pigeon / some sort of avian (I had only a limited number of colours to choose from as I’ll be damned if I’ll pay more for Singapore-bought acrylic yarn than Xiamen-bought wool yarn, lucky for me Mum liked a few of the colours very much)
• gave my sister a crochet penguin / bird of some sort keychain whose name is Reginald (yes, I named him, and yes, I named Crispin too, but no, I did not name Fidelius)
• made my annual pilgrimage to Shashlik — this is a Singaporean tradition, at least in our family (the fact that the place has stayed open with no change in its menu or service for at least two decades proves that it’s not just us), and it is TOTALLY WRONG of me not to order borscht and beef shashlik AND cherries jubilee at least once a year, and apologies to Mum who thinks the place is “so old-fashioned!”, but has to take me whenever I come through
• turned 30, and changed my IC because I had to, although I won’t be able to vote in any election if I continue to wander around overseas and not be a patriotic Singaporean in the armed forces, in training as sponsored by the government, or employed by an “an international organisation of which Singapore is a member, or any other organisation designated by the President under the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore” — just so you know

I’m watching BBC World and it’s a discussion on the Muhammad cartoons — Jesus Mary Joseph Allah and Moses, this is crazy.

He’s* not so bad, really. Paul Van Dyk played a good set for the short time we were present in Zouk to hear him. And by the time we left, which was after 1am, there was STILL a queue waiting patiently outside — no one looked like they were about to charge the impenetrable barrier of velvet rope, this being Singapore and everything.

I must be getting old. A mere 11 years ago, I would have thought nothing of squeezing with an over-capacity crowd, bopping along to whatever was playing at Zouk. But of course, it wouldn’t have been dance music, as I am sticking firm to my conviction of disliking dance music, although I own almost all of the Prodigy albums, a number of Chemical Brothers CDs, bought The Stanton Sessions based on a magazine review and like it, and count a mix of electronica-type CDs among my collection.

Anyways. Gone are the days when surviving Mambo night at Zouk were a matter of course; when I go dancing, I want SPACE, room to bounce around, room for air conditioning to cool my sweaty bod, and not to be mindful of someone else’s rhythms. Neil, Mr Dance Music Aficionado, doesn’t dance (go figure out the irony of that on your own), and most of the blokes in Xiamen don’t dance with me because there isn’t any chance I’d sleep with them (plus I bounce around with arms flailing — on occasion — and it probably looks kinda crazy).

So there was this big queue outside Zouk when we arrived, which prompted me to ask Neil, “Exactly how much do you like this DJ?”. We took the ageing hipster route and paid an extra $5 each to gain entry into Velvet Underground (shorter queue), had a drink and ambled over to Zouk. When it got REALLY crowded and hot and smoky and sweaty, I asked Neil, “Exactly how much do you like this DJ?”, he decided that he didn’t like him enough to endure everyone’s sweat (and probably B.O.) rubbing off on us as folks of all shapes and sizes (I’m still not understanding why anyone in Singapore would want to wear a knit beanie) squeezed past (I forgot to mention that no matter where I stand, there must be a ghostly ‘Exit’ sign floating less than eerily above my head).

Here’s what happened. Paul Van Dyk started his set at about 12.45am. We probably left at about 1.30. Us old weenies gave two more people — the young folk — the opportunity to get into Zouk. And Neil can say he’s still with it because he saw Paul Van Dyk. AND he’s old enough to have bought the first release of Paul Van Dyk’s first 12″ single (he’s sitting here and being pedantic, I can’t say ‘record’ for some reason):

“‘Perfect Day’ and ‘Perfect Night’ are on side A, ‘Perfect Morning’ is on side B. Produced sometime in the 80s, possibly around… (drinks tea) you’ll have to look it up, ya wee shite.”

* I don’t think there’s anything wrong with watching an East German bloke play music on his Powerbook, I was just grouchy because it was so ridiculously crowded.